Deirdre19

Sometimes people (who aren't even watching the show) rate episodes before they are aired. The system on MDL doesn't prevent this.

His in-laws were just killed by some random gangsters (we don't know any more than that and it isn't relevant) just before their wedding. His girlfriend then falls into depression because seeing him constantly reminds her of this loss. She goes to see Ling Mingding for therapy and he tells Bai Yaxing that he needs to cut ties with her to let her forget this trauma. Bai Yaxing cannot bear to give up this relationship so he doesn't listen to LingMinding and then the girlfriend commits suicide. The hypnotist is absolutely not at fault here, but Bai Yaxing still blames him.

I really didn't like this bit of the backstory because I find it nonsensical. I mean, if the guy is a hypnotist, why can't he do anything about his patient's traumatic memories?

The story was much better in the novel: Bai Yaxing is a policeman who goes on an undercover mission for two years and leaves behind his girlfriend. When he comes back they get together again, but he has also brought another woman with him from the mission. The GF finds out and gives him an ultimatum. He then tries to go on a hypnotism course offered by Ling Mingding, but gets rejected in the initial assessment because he has unethical motives for learning hypnotism. So he cannot mitigate the impeding crises by using hypnotism on his GF and instead has to tell her the truth, that he cannot make up his mind between the two women. The GF then kills herself, her fiancé (marrying another guy was her "ultimatum") creates a fuss at Bai Yaxing's work and he gets "invited to resign".
In other words, he's a two-timing b*stard who only has himself to blame, but instead he blames the hypnotist who wouldn't teach him in time.
This

Sorry, I don't. I clicked on one of the links that someone had posted for it but what I saw looked more like a behind-the-scenes shot of a few minutes.
I'm sure sooner or later it will appear on YT with subs. The drama has a proper ending so for me there is no urgent need for "closure" by watching an extra episode.

Good to know! I watched Wuliang last night... it felt a bit "unfinished" but visually it was good. I hate it when everyone is wearing pastel colours and all CGI is just unicorns and sparkles.

Yeah, I really hate the censorship excuse which very often is just a cover for lazy scriptwriting. In this case, however, I think the decision to whitewash the main villain could really be because of some strange rules. The fact that they turned him from a ex-police captain (in the novel) into a simple police informant seems to point in that direction.

The faked death is at the end of ep. 16 and the showdown is in ep. 18, so 17 is mainly flashbacks with LF missing LFP, (eating some solitary clay-pot rice...) a bit of research on the case and finally the build-up to ep. 18 with the revelation that the dead body wasn't LFP.
All the truth then comes in ep. 18.

LFP stops working with LF because he sees it's getting him nowhere. LF suspects him and arrests him over the girl they were looking after. LFP then fakes his death (with the help of the mystery man) and LF is guilt-ridden. LFP then kidnaps the guy responsible for his mother's death (also with the help of the mystery man) and wants to kill him, but LF interferes which leads to a dramatic showdown where both of them shout a few truths at each other. Through the flashbacks we learn that LF was an innocent bystander regarding the death of LFP's mother but it is a sore point for him because he behaved cowardly. This is the reason why he couldn't tell LFP what he knew about it.

So you want real spoilers then?

I agree with your comments on the master-mind. I was expecting another big bang in ep. 24 and then it felt as if they sort of lost interest. Maybe there are censorship rules in China that attempted mass-murders based on nazi ideology (¨kill all the weak') cannot be shown in a TV drama.

Their relationship goes continuously downhill until it hits rock bottom towards the end of ep. 16.
LF distrusts LFP more and more and LFP has given up on expecting any clues from LF. This is why he turns to the mystery man. I think he has always known that this is a manipulator, but the urge to know what happened in his mother's case is stronger than any other considerations.

Oh, oh, episode 23 had me on the edge of my chair... That was one tense showdown!!
Kudos to James Wang! He really nailed this role!

They become real friends after that. They express some of their feelings/frustrations in episode 18 and from then on they really trust each other. And LFP stops eating lollies.

A nice article on this, with many pretty photos...
https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/591814616

It all comes back together in episodes 18 (my favourite!) and 19. There are a lot of flashbacks that explain the whole story...

This was quite entertaining...
I love how the FL can look after herself and only puts on the "damsel in distress" routine whenever she wants something. The dialogues were very funny.
Only 15 episodes of approx. 10 min were easy to watch in a single session.

I'm working on it... you can find the link and some important information regarding the three novels in this series under "recent discussions".

I watched on kisskh. The subs are, however, a lot more "adventurous" than those on Viki as it's the machine translation from Mango. They take some getting used to as all the names come up as literal translation half of the time.

The teaser-trailer looks impressive - hopefully for once the drama will keep the same tone of darkness and suspense.
Too many times have we been promised dark suspensful drama only too end up with a fecking comedy or romantic same-old.

Ep. 21 was ok. As usual many elements of the novel have been rehashed and put in a completely different context. The flashback into Bai Yaxing's past felt a bit lengthy and I cannot see yet how all that happened there would be relevant for the rest of the story, but maybe the next episodes will tell.
In any case, the actor playing Bai Yaxing is doing a great job in being an arrogant prick, he really brings some depth to the character.
The drama version of Bai Yaxing feels a bit white-washed. They have given him such a tragic background with the lymphoma and the murdered in-laws that one could almost feel sorry for him. In the novel he was a police captain who got sacked for mis-conduct (he brought a woman back from an under-cover mission and then his girlfriend committed suicide - no hypnotist involved). He then went astray and committed murder to make his fortune.

Episodes 21 and 22 are finally subbed...